


Saint Lost

by Calesvol



Series: The Archives [11]
Category: Corpse Bride (2005), Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, M/M, Political Intrigue, Temporary Character Death, ardyn being awful and creepy as usual? yup, mentioned Lunyx, the Ardyn/Ravus is very one-sided
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-02-27 08:30:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13244442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calesvol/pseuds/Calesvol
Summary: A Corpse Bride AU. In an effort to save his sister from the snares of an arranged marriage, Ravus Nox Fleuret takes it upon himself to volunteer in her stead to be wed to Chancellor Ardyn Izunia. What seems to be a steady arrangement instead devolves into a political ploy for power and for Ravus’ life to be forfeit among the dead. Yet, it is here where an unexpected ally might be his only chance for absolution.





	1. Snow-washed

( **Warning(s)** : T, none]

* * *

 

“Mother wouldn’t have forced this on you, Ravus.”

 

“Mother isn’t here, sister.”

 

He stands before the mirror in his own bedroom, his sister attentively adjusting the tie she’d just knotted for him, staring dispassionately at his own reflection that seemed to fog in the worn mirror that was impossibly stained with tarnish from the ages. In the dim lighting, one could almost mistake his countenance for a skull, trauma-shocked hair for one who’d died long ago—and, perhaps it was true. Oddly mismatched eyes were the only indicator of the prosthetic he wore beneath the sleeve of his suit, an abomination that had been the cause of their house’s bone-bare fortunes. His military earnings were small stipends spent heavily on Lunafreya’s well-being and the upkeep of Fenestala that had fallen on hard times since Niflheim’s conquest.

 

“I don’t like this arrangement, Ravus. We barely know this man you’re to be wed to. Nothing of his house, beyond his role as Chancellor—“ Lunafreya was stopped short when he shook his head, a protest still alive in those ashen blue eyes but faltered.

 

“This world needs you alive as Oracle, Lunafreya. You do not know this man. I… I can handle him. You need not worry for me.” She knows the reluctance in his words too well. Ardyn Izunia was dangerous, and though he’d actively proposed this marriage, it was Ravus who prevented Luna from being selected. Tenebraen princes were of less concern to a matriarchy as this, as similar-gendered marriages rarely caused scandal. In Tenebrae, this meant freedom. In this instance, he was protecting the only family he had left.

 

“Ravus, should you wish to back out, no one would think ill of you,” Luna placated, placing petite hands on his bicep and forearm, a wan smile ghosting on her pale features. Even if she hid it, how frail she looked, how ghostly. This long winter and the shortage of food rations addled by a charitable spirit was ruining her health.

 

That drove a stake of guilt in his heart. When Ardyn was near, the very foulness he exuded tainted her. This was exactly why he had to protect her from even a man who meant her ill.

 

“Were it only so simple...” He was stronger than Luna, if in body predominantly. He knew Luna, but she didn’t know Ardyn the way he did. This would easily finance the manor and afford them some protection, even if by but a little, and keep them afloat through privilege. Even if this emotional strain would be contentious.

 

There was a knock at the door, Maria announcing that their train to Gralea had arrived. Now, there was no turning back.

 

* * *

 

For the past eight years, he’d been seeing this changeless man in his dreams. Clad in black, with boyishly spiky black hair and warm ruby eyes that looked almost brown, and a face youthful and serene. These were the lucid dreams Ravus remembered, spending summery vales in sylleblossom fields with this young man and speaking for long hours. It was a strange form for the conscience to take, but doing this somehow resolved many a problem before. In a childhood before the bombs dropped.

 

The man sat in a tree, leg dangling over the fat, gnarled branch he perched upon while Ravus sat by the grassy embankments of the river, near a trickling run-off that fed into crystal-cool waters. Willow fronds caressed the waters, and the silence was companionable. It always was when he first came, after all. Fragrant summer airs breezed past them, the soothing chorus of fluttering leaves billowing through the willow like hair. Newly emerged from the spring.

 

“You’re...getting married?”

 

Ravus could hear Noctis shift in surprise, seemingly shocked from his repose. The Tenebraen’s eyebrows only furrowed severely, as if his expression weren’t grim enough.

 

“And this surprises you?” he demanded bluntly of this dream-bound man, eyes immobile from the subtle intricacies of currents in the stream. Arm propped on a raised leg, one might think Ravus a statue.

 

Hearing him hop from his place and leap to the ground, it was only then that Ravus inclined his head towards the other. Noctis stood several feet behind him, expression discernibly unreadable.

 

“No, not really. Do you want this to happen?” Ravus moved aside some, silent invitation for Noctis to sit next to him. He did, but not within terribly close proximity. This is how it always was, after all.

 

“It is my duty. I do not live in a world where I am free to give my heart to whomever I wish,” Ravus explained, though he fell silent for a long while.

 

“Eight years, it’s been,” he murmured meditatively, flexing at the scarred tissue of his ruined hand. In his dreams, he wore no encasing, no prosthetic. The former prince always wondered as to why. Why this damned thing came with him, here. His eyes shifted to Noctis. If he changed, why hadn’t this man? “Who are you, really? Are you a fabrication of my dreams as I’ve led to believe all these years?” These circumstances made him doubt everything anymore.

 

Noctis’ countenance turned away from the Commander, set afar on the river. “No, I’m not. I was there—when your mother died. I was the one who collected her soul.” His head bowed, a long silence spanning them.

 

Reaper. Ravus’ eyes widened in shock, taken aback. In the pregnant pause, his gaze became like a glare as it searched Noctis hotly for answers. “How— _Why_ are you here, then?”

 

The reaper smiled mirthlessly, a wan, barely-shadow of a smile ghosting on his features. “Dreams and death are a lot more interconnected than people think. Your soul—it goes places. One’s just more permanent than the other.” Noctis knew. That wasn’t the answer Ravus sought. “I... _saw_ something, in you. That day, just as she died. ‘m...not even sure myself. I waited, sure, but things just happened. And here we are.”

 

As abstract an explanation as that was, it seemed strange. Guilt, perhaps. Not an uncommon thing to take pity on the victim. Eight years had lessened the shock, the scandalized look. With his impending wedding everything else seemed so minuscule.

 

Marrying for love was unheard of, even in this day and age. When one was royalty, marriage was to gain peace or curry favor. Yet as he gazed upon Noctis, something stirred within Ravus. Something he hadn’t truly entertained before wiped away the fog of the past, sharpening the picture. Noctis wasn’t a dream, anymore. Someone who knew him, who hadn’t used everything he confessed against him. Eight years and changeless, it was foolish—

 

Ravus caught himself before such irrational thoughts ran away from him, turning his face away. This wedding was driving him mad, making him seek ridiculous things. _So soon? Was he truly so weak?_

 

“You’re doing this for your sister, aren’t you?” Ravus was broken from his rapture when Noctis spoke, fixing him with a bemused look. “You’re strong, Ravus. Stronger than you know. You’ve made it to deputy High Commander, haven’t you? He’s a man of politics. Doubt he’ll be able to do much even if he tried.”

 

There was a confident smile on Noctis’ face. One that made Ravus realize the depths of a terrible, deep loneliness. He frowned, but it was hardly any different than the aloof grimness Noctis was thoroughly used to. Turning away, for once, he didn’t feel the same sort of resolution that had come from their talks in the past. Like more tangles had been introduced than soothed.

 

“We shall see, Noctis.”

 

Oh, but how hollow he felt.

 

* * *

 

Ravus awoke with a stiffness permeating his body and a dull ache in his chest. Rolling his head to gaze outside the window, an endless, white-capped sea of snow and blizzards greeted his vision and suddenly the numbness at his temple had a culprit. Shifting in his seat, the Tenebraen frowned at his own stiffness, not used to sleeping in such constrained positions for as long as he had.

 

It was strange for Lunafreya to not have accompanied him, but he knew her duties as Oracle took precedence. As it were, the Lucian-born Nyx Ulric had been her bodyguard for the better part of two years now, and Ravus trusted him enough to not blunder like an idiot he otherwise presented himself as.

 

His thoughts drifted again to the boy, the reaper. What he thought had been a subconscious depository was an extant being, and the idea of being wed to malicious Izunia suddenly stood in strange contest to this. And he knew why. Ravus knew himself too well not to; lest someone exploit a weakness he wasn’t aware of.

 

How would this one be, exactly? When he’d been younger, some several months into their frequent talks, he remembered becoming enamored with Noctis. Nothing like a true love, for he knew better. Having someone, real or not, burden his problems without using them as a dagger against him had been a sorely wanted luxury in an empire that would’ve otherwise stabbed him in the back; a profusely lonely existence that latched on to any friendly company and clung to it. He’d learnt that long before this.

 

After awhile, he convinced himself of the foolishness of such a fairy tale. That Noctis wasn’t real. Nothing had ever come of those encounters but talking. Sometimes near, sometimes far apart. Always talking about the most intimate of things. And he’d grown as a consequence.

 

But all this dredged those old, vulnerable sentiments he’d thought been buried deep. At the time when he couldn’t afford to be weak. Not when Lunafreya needed him as a vanguard between herself and that bastard chancellor now more than ever.

 

No...there was no time to ruminate on past foolishness. As the jagged skyline of Gralea arose from the wintery sea like teeth, he grit his jaw resolutely. Only a few more trials and he might be rid of this insipid conundrum. The Chancellor would be amused before and after the wedding, then lose interest and allow some normalcy to return. Endowments taken, parties to attend and declare, and it’d be over. For a war-hardened commander, he’d endured far worse than this.

 

A feminine voice announced their arrival time, Ravus folding his hands on his lap as he waited. He devoted his thoughts to Lunafreya, idly hoping all was well with his sister.

 

* * *

 

The Castle of Colbrine had been the ancestral home of the Aldercapts since time immemorial. A magnificent Gothic structure that spoke of an old and bygone elegance, baroque interiors all colored in the white, crimson, and black standards typical of their dynasty. Since having disembarked at the station, it was in a gaudy Rolls Royce that the Tenebraen was ushered to the palace, partly annoyed at the unnecessary extravagance that felt like either patronizing or condescending and Ravus couldn’t decide on which.

 

He was a damned officer in the army, already. No need for the needless pomp and parade.

 

Arriving, he was properly searched before entry, a stinging reminder that they still bore little trust in him as an outsider, regardless of the ovations he’d received for over a decade of service. Rising through the ranks simply so he’d better protect his sister and his homeland.

 

A member of the royal retinue, Iedolas’ own chamberlain, led him to the immaculate Hall of Conferences. Like stepping into a page from the Altissian Renaissance, even he had to admit the heavily gilt mosaics and domed ceilings and impossibly intricate moldings were exquisite to behold, like a cathedral. Even the glass tinted the cold sunlight outside a summery cream, easing his nerves somewhat. Such sunlight always reminded him of Luna.

 

His hackles raised the moment Ardyn’s swarmy person entered the room, standing to attention as a bevy of guards followed suit of the man, holding the doors open wordlessly. Humming beneath his breath, a deceptive levity in that maroon frame of hair, Ravus resisted every urge to curl his lips back in a snarl at the man.

 

“Chancellor Izunia,” Ravus greeted as he stood to attention, inclining his head just so even as his expression remained stonily impassive. It had to, lest the man worm for fissures and snare on to them and make a noose of it.

 

“Isn’t this all just so exciting, Lord Ravus? Weddings are always such touching events. I never thought I’d live to see my own in this lifetime,” Ardyn rambled with a dramatically enunciated tone as he swanned about the room, admiring the various vases set on tables commemorating things Ravus was too aloof to care for. But, this was all simply a distraction. Mismatched eyes saw the doors close behind him, the airy pretense seeming to dissolve the moment they did as his raised shoulders suddenly sagged and the summery glow of the sun seemed to chill and dim. “Has Lady Lunafreya been well lately, Ravus?”

 

Ravus bristled, but gave no visible indication of it. “Yes, she is. May we get to the business at hand, Chancellor?” The subject he simply wanted to get over with.

 

Over his shoulder, molten golden eyes concealed by waves of Merlot, Ardyn flashed a wolfish smile. “Oh, _Ravus_ , you never were a romantic, were you?” he chided with a dark laugh.

 

“I simply wish to know if this affair will interfere with my duties significantly or not.”

 

“You would be permitted leave, naturally.” Ardyn sat himself at the head of the table with a flourish, the silent command for Ravus to do the same jabbing the Commander. Ravus did so at the very opposite end, a silent defiance to him ever being Ardyn’s subordinate in this circus. Ardyn produced a shief of papers from his lapel pocket, concentrating on them first before ever giving a glance to the former prince.

 

“Ah yes, what I’m certain you’re anxious to hear: there will be a significant dowry endowed, however, we’ve decided it best that Tenebrae be ruled by a governor, but as Chancellor, I unfortunately will not have this title and His Radiance believes you ought have it, dear boy. All decisions will run through me, naturally, and I will have direct oversight to all of Tenebrae’s affairs. We’ll both retain our respective positions with little change in the world. Isn’t that splendid, Ravus?” the Chancellor purred smugly, raising his brows at the younger man.

 

Ravus found himself surprisingly taken aback, warning himself not to be lulled by it. Governor? He had to admit, the title did sound a bit strange for him to have, but...he’d be in charge of his home. He’d have greater access to be around Lunafreya, and not worry so much about going behind people’s backs to attend to her. His head bowed, even if it sounded too good to be true. “That’s...very generous, Chancellor. Might I ask of our personal lives, then?” This elicited a grin from the man.

 

“We’ll have a room at Fenestala, of course. None of the other rooms, but one we both might like. Unfortunately, our duties will keep us apart, but public appearances abound. We’ll make quite a smart couple. Come now, you didn’t think this would entail selling your soul to the devil, now would it~?” The curl in his voice made Ravus cringe internally, but he withheld expressions so frank.

 

It would still be a loveless marriage, then. It was a grateful thing his hope for true love died in him a long time ago. This was practical. This was one based in reality. “No, Chancellor. I merely worried it would...hamper my obligations to the army. I would not wish for the sword of office His Radiance gifted to me to be besmirched.”

 

“Should we acclimate to a life of wedded bliss, I believe you should familiarize yourself with calling me by simply my name. Try it.” Ardyn waved a wrist encouragingly at him, as if prompting a hound to roll over for him.

 

“Ardyn,” Ravus repeated flatly, utterly deadpanned.

 

The man addressed brightened sarcastically, pointing to himself in shock. “Who, me?” He laughed merrily and rose from his seat, Ravus taking this as invitation to do the same and began stalking from the room in hopes of recouping from this ordeal, to mull over the elevation in office he’d be receiving shortly.

 

However, before he could, he exhaled sharply when he found the equally tall man too close and corralling him against a wall, backing into it until the fanciful moldings dug uncomfortably into his spine. Fixated on those eyes of liquid gold, Ardyn leaned in close and pressed his lips to Ravus’, though there was nothing tender about it. Ravus’ lips remained lifeless through it, eyes open and watching, despite the heat he felt stirring in his solar plexus. Ardyn’s hands took him by his flared hips, pressing their pelvises scandalously close together.

 

Not realizing his breath was hitched, Ravus exhaled when Ardyn moved away, the man smiling his Cheshire’s smile.

 

“Tomorrow, then. Do take care of yourself until then, dearest Ravus.”


	2. Take Your Desire

(Warning(s): M, sexual content)

 

* * *

 

That night, and the following few nights, were restless and lonely affairs. The meeting Ardyn had promised never came, remembering the sultry tilt of his voice that had all but set the demand in stone. A summons would’ve been issued, surely, but none ever came. From the trunk he’d packed with him, never allowing the butlers to tangle themselves in his affairs, he took out a small, industrial looking and military-issued laptop that he attempted to burn away the hours on. Flitting through digital mounds of paperwork, answering e-mails, approving military junctures and all sorts of martial business.

 

But, it wasn’t enough. If there was anything Ravus hated, it was being caught in limbo. Not being told the itinerary ahead and kept in the utter dark. A man could only sequester himself for so long in his room, after all.

 

Not even his nights brought solace, either being an unconscious blacking out or fitful dreams that bordered on being nightmares and made him ache missing Noctis and their conversations. Of a biting loneliness that clawed hot and vulnerable at his breast. But what a terrible bout of foreboding that lingered on him!

 

Ravus awoke that morning stumbling blankly into the shower and making himself proper for what he’d assume was another day in, remembering express orders not to leave his room unless summoned. Just as he was finishing dressing in casual wear, a knock and a slip of paper came under the door.

 

It was a summons, finally. Ravus tore open the envelop unceremoniously, surprised to read that it was from Ardyn, personally. For reasons even he couldn’t discern, there was a stirring warmth at reading the flowery script inviting him to his chambers. He had no illusions as to what this was, as the hours clearly denoted were well past the time of propriety. He had to remind himself that this was his fiance, and not simply like the past where his body had been a commodity to keep illogical impediments from keeping him from his goals.

 

The day passed without incident, otherwise. Ravus threw himself into his work, the suite thankfully spacious enough that he could utilize the wide flooring and soft carpets to devote to a few hours worth of exercise, burning away the doubt that stewed in his mind and nervously wondering what such an evening would entail.

 

Debauchery, no doubt.

 

Ravus stopped mid-push up, no tremble in his musculature as he stared blankly into the carpet. Furling his legs under him to sit cross-legged, he wondered: did such a thing bother him? Truly? In the past, aside from the tumult and abuses, he’d learnt that there were those who found him attractive. Who would use this fact against him, like some exotic whore from Tenebrae. It was to humiliate him, he knew. To dehumanize him, little well as it worked.

 

This was fiance now. Ardyn had nothing to use against him, anymore. This consummation between betrothed and nothing more.

 

At least, a lonely soul sorely wished to believe this.

 

Hours later, wearing an outfit that the letter had additionally suggested—slacks and a loosely buttoned dress shirt—Ravus departed from his chambers and for the temporary ones Ardyn had made a home of. It was lavish, as to be expected. He knocked upon the curvaceously carved oak door and found it unlocked, but not answered.

 

There the man was, sitting upon his bed, barely concealed by the velvet blanket that loitered over his loins. Spread luxuriantly like a maned lion in all his pride and power that Ravus couldn’t help but be allured by it.

 

Ardyn said nothing as his hand was offered, Ravus hypnotized as he crawled on to the bed without another word. Despite the lucidity he maintained, there was something inexorably dreamlike in the way Ardyn drew him into a deep kiss, shedding garments of clothing like they were liquid, with such ease it might’ve been inhuman. Ravus felt his eyes sink closed for the first time, rolled under the Chancellor as he became like a sensuous eclipse and Ravus the moon so lovely in his surrender.

 

“When was the last time you were allowed this, Ravus? Your desire?” Ravus was foggy-eyed and warm with lust beneath him, bare and flushed like ripening fruit. When Ardyn spoke, a bite was taken from soft flesh and he moaned.

 

“I— My desire,” the Commander repeated, swallowing thickly as Ardyn lined his throat with marks. “What...” his mind trailed, trying to think through the lust, of his fingers tangled in that burgundy mane, “of it? Why does it matter?”

 

Ardyn withdrew with a chuckle, deep and throaty. “We’re taught desire is a bane. Artless cretins take from others, ravaging the helpless.” His eyes lidded, irises seeming to glow like flame behind glass. “When have you last taken your desire? To allow yourself attraction, to indulge in private lusts with thoughts of them? To woo, to charm, to mate?”

 

Ravus’ brows puckered in his confusion, gasping hotly when he felt Ardyn’s lips trail from neck to collarbone to pectorals. “What necessity is there in that? We’re to be wed. Why have I need of anyone else?” the man scoffed in consternation, despite the pang in his chest. The guilty admission he’d never speak. Black-haired and serene-faced.

 

“Take your desire, dear Ravus. I can see the face of another in your gaze, as if it were a photograph in your hand.” This caused Ravus to jolt in alarm. Was Ardyn psychic or was that some mad contemplation? He propped himself on his elbows, flushed and indignant, before Ardyn coaxed him down to the silk embrace of sheets with a heated French. Ravus groaned into it, a colorless sound for now. Undetermined.

 

Ardyn rolled off him, lounging like a cat as he gazed expectantly at the Commander. Smiling enigmatically, he nodded towards Ravus’ half-arousal. “Take your desire, Ravus. Shape it however you please. I do not mind it.” Ardyn’s voice was a sultry rumble, causing the younger man to shudder pleasurably.

 

“Take my desire...” Ravus slurred incoherently, closing his eyes as he guided his own fingers down his voluptuous pectorals and inhaled at the sensitivity, letting his imagination run away from him.

 

The walls were broken. Of innocence, of friendship. Like those bygone days, he ruined it. He brought Noctis into this fantasy, made him straddle his hips, bare and warm, that summery smile beaming down at him with such gentility he felt like he was tainting it. But Ardyn’s mere presence goaded him, told him it was fine. He wasn’t violating a sacred dream or a precious person. He allowed himself to desire. He allowed himself to _human_.

 

Ravus began to thrust into the air, heart throbbing as he envisaged Noctis, too, in the throes of ecstasy. Kneading his chest and straddling his hips, riding these waves. He imagined that vision breaking, panting hard while Ravus heaved breaths. That voice that had been his consolation, his rock, was now warm and liquid with lust. It was unlike anything he’d heard in that near decade and he spilled over, bleached and warm, over himself.

 

“Noc... _tis_ —!” His words clenched in his teeth, choking back a moan and collapsing in the sheets, unreal and sated. He blinked, disbelieving. The line had been drawn in the sand, and he’d swiped his hand over it, erasing it, when he’d thought it set in stone before.

 

Next to him, Ardyn’s lips curled in a smug grin, a chortle emanating his chest cavity with some craven satisfaction.

 

* * *

 

The next week was spent like this. As preparations for the wedding were underway, it seemed a silent assumption that the nuptials were allowed their time alone to bond and plan for their future. Only, it was not as they assumed.

 

Each night, Ravus was allowed to indulge in all and any food he wanted until his belly ached. They rutted and made love and fucked until he was hoarse and boneless and too sore to move. Ravus fell into his fiance’s honeyed traps of hedonism and more and more Ardyn encouraged him to take his desires. Devour those foods. Fuck until his lust was satisfied for the night. Or day, should he be alone in his chambers. Thinking of what he wanted until his desires were seized and wrung for every drop of ambrosia he could drink.

 

He hadn’t encountered Noctis in dream. He half didn’t wish to.

 

It was on the last night after satisfying yet another few hours in this hedonistic fantasy that he took his sleep in Ardyn’s overstuffed, too comfortable bed after several glasses of wine and heavy petting. The familiar turf and fragrant air flooded his senses, something other than the musk of sex or alcohol or foods deliciously sweet flooding his nostrils.

 

There he was.

 

Seated along the river, he appeared untouchable. Hair mussed only slightly by the wind, too dark for the scenery, like a ghost. But, he remembered what Ardyn had told him, about this. Words repeated in some fashion nearly almost every night in action and encouragement had poisoned his rationale, had made Ravus twisted in some way.

 

It was when Noctis craned around to greet him with a sheepish smile that he felt his heart quicken in his throat. “Hey, long time no see. How’s the married life treating you?”

 

Ravus felt himself go cold. This—what was he expecting? Something to satisfy his ego? “As well as it may. The wedding’s yet to occur. I wouldn’t yet call me wedded, Noctis.” Flashes of those visions haunted him. Of the crossed line. At what had haunted him so much of late it was becoming too real.

 

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Technicalities and stuff.”

 

Ravus’ throat closed as he felt himself digging too deep. Take his desire? No, no—claim it! Though, he balked. This wasn’t the bedroom. Ardyn wasn’t here. That man who bent his psyche couldn’t enable him like in his dreams. That wasn’t him, it wasn’t— He felt dazed, angry for reasons he knew but denied, a blister of rawness and deep mortal aching he was just feeling—suppressed for decades.

 

But Ardyn had told him to. Told him to be human and **violently** so after being denied this for so long.

 

“We’ve made love,” he cannot stop himself from saying, fists clenching bitterly. It’s sulfur that’s drowned his lungs and a bitterness that crested his heart. “Every night this week. He’s taken me and I gave myself to Ardyn freely.”

 

Noctis fell quiet for a long pause, ruby eyes gazing uncertainly down and sidelong, mouth slightly gaped. As if searching for what to say, unused to Ravus to being so frank over something so...carnal. Quirking his lips and coughing a laugh, Noctis lit up with a tense mirth. “Hey, long as it’s fun, right?” He stooped to search for skipping stones and Ravus cannot help but feel spite and sour fury.

 

“Are you truly so imbecilic?!” he bristled wrathfully, stalking towards the immortal angrily while Noctis backpedaled several steps back in surprise.

 

“The _hell’s_ gotten into you?” Noctis shot back incredulously, brows furrowed in disbelief.

 

“Eight years, Noctis! Eight years, and—“ He bit his tongue, flushed with anger and pursing his lips into a tight scowl. Eyes fluttering shut, Ravus bowed his head and shook it, shoulders still tense. His voice uttered a paltry whisper. “Almost a decade. Have I truly been _nothing_ but a friend to you?”

 

Noctis seemed even more bewildered. He cautiously took a few ginger steps towards the distressed Tenebraen, lost in a slurry of dread and conflicted emotions. “Rav, what’s wrong? You’re acting weird.” Ardyn’s words coiled like snakes through his mind, springing him to a sudden action, frenzied and desperate.

 

Too close. You never should come close even to a serpent that didn’t intend to strike.

 

Like lightning did he seize Noctis in a vice of an embrace, his voice a muffled protest when Ravus kissed him hard on this lips, locking their bodies so close there was little room for needless breath. His hands coiled around Noctis’ body, kissing the reaper hungrily and greedily. Like how Ardyn had molded him to.

 

Inexorably did Noctis wedge his hands between them, then pushing back with a powerful force, wheeling back several steps, breathing hard, cheeks flushed and panting. His lips were still kiss-swollen despite how brief it’d been, Noctis gulping down a breath.

 

“Noctis—“ Ravus murmured in weak protest, trying to stride after him, still in a state of shock. Noctis only backed away, shaking his head wordlessly before bolting away like the devil was at his heels.

 

Ravus called after him, but it was useless. The world plunged into dark and he woke up in a cold sweat.

 

* * *

 

Another suit had been presented for him, this time being an off-white number that resembled the coloration of Tenebrae with a black dress shirt and dark violet tie paired with it, something damnably sensitive to his own person. Had Ardyn known about this previously? Ravus felt his cheeks color at the thought, remembering the night before, how lewd they’d been, how he could never tell another soul of their transgressions—

 

Cutting that insipid line of thought off with a growl, he set about to concentrating only upon changing into it and nothing more. Most of all, he needed to rid himself of these childish notions that love would truly yield from this.

 

But, gazing upon the suit, of the disaster that had transpired with Noctis...would it be so untoward to wish for even a modicum of it? Last night had felt like a confirmation. What a foolish thing he’d done, had hoped for. As if it would be so easy.

 

Donning it, he tried to think of the positives. Ardyn was a handsome man, and anyone would be blind not to see that. He was a sensuous lover, one that had brought Ravus to fulfilling release more times than he could count in the past week alone. When they weren’t making love or feasting amid a spread of silk, they spoke. He was an illuminated man, and together they filled the low hours with conversations of history, of astronomy, of mythology, of the military and affairs of men of Niflheim and Ravus found himself anticipating these conversations with relish.

 

It wasn’t like what he’d revealed to Noctis. No, those were heart-bled and would never span between him and another person. Not even with the man who was due to become his husband.

 

Ravus knew he couldn’t be totally vulnerable to him. Not to anyone of the empire, now or ever.

 

But he still felt the threatening razor lose its edge when Ardyn knocked on his bedroom door, Ravus answering it and taken slightly aback by the suit he wore beneath a smartly tailored trench coat. Ardyn wore no fedora and his hair was as unruly as ever, but tamed slightly by a small ponytail. It was...disarming, to say the least. Pleasing, if he were honest. Even if he’d personally experienced the muscular physique beneath many times that week.

 

“I see you’re awake,” the Chancellor simpered with an amused smile. His smile seemed warm, even if it was perpetually colored by some mischief. One that felt less dastardly. “Come, the rehearsal dinner awaits us and His Radiance would hardly wish to be kept waiting.” Invitingly, he offered his arm for Ravus to take.

 

Looping his arm through, without waiting a beat did they set off in a ground-eating walk.

 

“I imagine the emperor would wish for the wedding to occur soon after,” Ravus remarked as Ardyn smiled dazzlingly at some maids rushing to gather the morning’s laundry.

 

“But of course. We’re not royalty, even if we might be nobility.”

 

Ravus grew quiet for a long moment, Ardyn slowing as the air grew heavier. “I must confess, you were not the man I imagined you’d be, Ardyn. This… I believe our wedded life might be a blissful one, if our duties to Niflheim do not interfere so much.”

 

They slowed to a stop, Ardyn taking Ravus’ chin with his thumb and fingers curled beneath it, a delicately commanding gesture. Though one could never part Ardyn from the eternal wiliness in his gaze, here it could be said it was tender. It moved to cup his cheek, an amused smile pronounced on his tanned skin. “Let us fall in love with one another, then. When this charade ceases, let us live as we have. Let us have our feasting and our fantasies. Would you like that, my dear?”

 

Ravus’ eyes lidded slightly, leaning into Ardyn’s touch. It was a poisonous thing, to be taken by sweet words and kind intentions. Even through the self-awareness he maintained at all times, of being always wary and always bristled by spines and mistrust, he wanted to succumb so much. A life of loneliness had made him hard, and he yearned for the softness he’d possessed in his youth. When he’d been kind, even gentle. Deeply, he longed for it. He wanted to be vulnerable without being harmed for it.

 

Too overwrought for words, Ravus circled his arms around Ardyn’s neck and passionately kissed him, the older man holding him closely as they could be despite who might be there to see.

 

Let him have softness, even if it was doomed to rot.


	3. End or Begin?

(Warning(s): M, gore, death)

* * *

 

Even when his nights are cloudless and cold, without a burbling stream or the sweetened shade of a weeping willow, they are still warm upon awaking. Ravus had since been spending his nights away from his own bedroom in exchange for sharing Ardyn’s bed. After their rough and tumble nights, he slept soundly, fully; better than he had in years and with a warm arm around his midsection and breath between his shoulder blades that reminds him he is not to be alone anymore.

 

Letters are sent to Luna, via Umbra, and due to the imperial censor that often circumnavigated and read all material passing through, his letters are at once honest and guarded. He tells Luna of what had transpired, of the closeness that had blossomed between him and the chancellor. Of the arrangement of governor, but nothing of his original misgivings that could incriminate him. She would know. Luna would know, but regardless, his happiness would soothe them both.

 

The dreams in which he met with Noctis no longer occurred, it would seem, and Ravus knew there would be time to mourn them another day. Yet, he remembered he still had Luna, the only other person aside from Noctis who knew almost everything about him. She could be his rock as much he sought to be hers.

 

Perhaps it was time he cease pouring himself in those dreams and instead decided to live among the living.

 

That morning, he and Ardyn departed with all tender sentiments as they left to prepare themselves. Ravus returned to his room, doing as the chancellor said would be requisite and changing into his military raiment. That wholly of Tenebrae, something he bore pride in knowing even the empire couldn’t take the love of his homeland away from him. They’d tried, and failed miserably. He’d earned this, and nothing could take it from him.

 

Buckling the complicated armor pieces over his prosthesis always took extra time, but at least it gave him another moment to mull over his future in peace.

 

It was when he sought his sword that the man became confused. The Alba Leonis was a unique blade forged with him in mind upon receiving it three years before for ascending to the rank of deputy High Commander before his formal appointment as High Commander but a few months before.

 

Fishing his pocket for a cell phone, he dialed Ardyn’s number, perplexed by this conundrum. Blasted maids or other must’ve misplaced it, the fools.

 

“Ardyn, yes. Have any of the staff reported seeing my sword? I seem to be without it,” came Ravus’ terse inquiry, without the tenderness coloring them from before.

 

“ _The Alba Leonis? Why, I can’t say I have, dear Ravus. If we cannot find it before the ceremony, we shall simply do without. Would a dummy sword be an acceptable substitute in the meantime?”_

 

Ravus sighed in exasperation. “Yes, it should. I see I shall simply have to do without.” He paused for a beat, feeling a light flush and nervousness color his cheeks and curdle his blood. When he heard Ardyn motion to hang up, he protested, “Ardyn, wait—“ before inhaling a shaky breath. “...I love you. I look forward to seeing you at the ceremony shortly.”

 

He could almost hear the sly upturn of Ardyn’s lips on the other end. _“And I, you. I eagerly await seeing you, my dear,”_ Ardyn said in a dusky baritone, eliciting a pleasurable shiver from the man.

 

The matter of the sword was almost entirely forgotten at that, Ravus lingering for several moments even after the call had ended to simply replay Ardyn’s farewell in his head, reciprocating those fledgling feelings. He knew it was far too early to yet call it love, perhaps better to say it was infatuation, but he knew the words would feel more real with time.

 

Regardless, he had his own wedding to attend, eager to see his sister and finally begin a better chapter of his life.

 

* * *

 

At the Cathedral of the Hexatheon, more ceremonial than seeing actual worship anymore, Ravus was in a small partitioned room wherein he was allowed to prepare himself, more mentally than anything. It was agreed in a previous letter that Luna would be the one walking him down the aisle, something he couldn’t be gladder for. If anyone deserved to, it was her.

 

It was silent, save for the distant din of the organ player and choir that would provide musical accompaniment, their music selection being several somber hymns in Niflheim’s tongue with one or two allowed in Tenebraen. It was touching, even if the lack of Tenebraen hymns was agitating.

 

Darker in the corridor outside his own, he couldn’t help but start when he saw a coattail of white flutter past the vanity mirror that afforded a wide view of the room at his back. Perhaps what was most damning was seeing the ornate scabbard of the Alba Leonis just as this phantom walked past.

 

Ravus bolted from from his seat, ready to shout for the thief to halt, but found the corridor only empty as he stared with a blistering contempt and bewilderment. However, sensitive hearing caught wind of the same footfalls emanating from a hall adjacent, Ravus giving chase. He stopped short again, seeing no perpetrator in this hall any more than the other. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he wondered if this weren’t some mad conjuration of an anxious mind before the wedding. Paranoia was still a symptom of the long years of abuse in the military.

 

“Ravus.”

 

He started at the sound of his name, sounding as if it’d been whispered in his ear. Forcing himself to calm, to quiet the thudding of his heart, he inhaled a steadying breath. That voice—it couldn’t have been his imagination.

 

Seeing yet another flutter of white, he followed the billow into what appeared appeared to be a small yet gracious chapel, appalled by what he saw.

 

Standing over the prone form of Iedolas was an exact doppelganger of himself, staring dispassionately at the pool of blood pooling on the marble floor. His sword was skewered through the emperor’s side, the man’s face still frozen in a paroxysm of horror and pain. The apparition turned slowly, smiling ghoulishly at Ravus with blackened coronas and ink-bleeding eyes, an inky Glasgow smile only terrorizing that expression further.

 

Though he held no love for the emperor, Ravus lunged at the phantom and snarled as he made to charge it and pin it down, only to find himself careening into empty air as it vanished the second he made contact. Catching himself before he could trip over the felled emperor’s feet, he breathed raggedly until he heard the damning sound of MT’s approaching.

 

Wheeling around sharply, he found the threshold to the chapel flooded with an eerily familiar silhouette than seemed menacing before it stepped into the light, Ravus finding himself facing a horror-struck Ardyn.

 

“What… What have you done?”

 

“It’s— It’s not what it looks like!” Ravus whispered breathlessly, stumbling a step towards his fiance before the man’s face suddenly twisted into that of rage.

 

Ardyn charged into Ravus and he felt a sharp sting in his gut, gasping painfully as he felt sharp steel suddenly gored into his abdomen, breath stuttering from his throat. Glancing down, he saw the hilt of a dagger protrude from his gut, body frozen from shock.

 

Eyes wide, his gaze turned incrementally on Ardyn as he suddenly saw the man smile ghoulishly and cruelly, eyes framed in shadow. “W-Why?” he gasped out so lowly only Ardyn could hear, hurt and betrayal clouding his features.

 

“ _Why_? Tsk, tsk, Ravus. Were you truly so easily fooled? Iedolas had to die, you see, and I needed a way of ridding you from gaining access to your dear sister. It’s funny how the world works, but I must say, you fit into the role quite splendidly,” Ardyn boasted mockingly, ramming the dagger in harder as Ravus cried out in pain, twisted and carved higher into his flesh, blood spurting out on to the floor to join the emperor’s.

 

“I-I thought we were...” Ravus trailed, coughing up blood as Ardyn shushed him and removed the blade, stepping back to let Ravus stagger, blood free to flow. Tears welled within his eyes, equally from a broken heart and from the excruciating pain as he clutched his bleeding abdomen. He stumbled forwards a step, Ardyn taking another back in response, quirking an unimpressed brow.

 

“As did I, but I cannot forgive what you’ve done,” Ardyn said in an audible, heartfelt tone, expression suddenly changed to one of sorrow as he gazed sadly on the commander despite how much Ravus wanted to scream and protest at the injustice of his action, to claw the falsity from his face.

 

Knees buckling, his free arm caught him despite how he felt his own intestines squelching and pressing grotesquely against his fingers, blood pooling as it reflected the pain and shock and tears that dripped and joined the growing pool. Strength giving way, he collapsed on his side, growing still as he felt his heart slow, eyes shining and blankly staring into oblivion as his vision grew darker and darker.

 

But the last thing he sees is a different pair of combat boots stand near him, kneeling, feeling himself being embraced by a strong pair of arms, catching a glimpse of familiar eyes and a face achingly merciful.

 

This was all he saw before all faded to black.


	4. Never-Dry

He didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious when Ravus awoke, coughing dryly and clutching his throat when dust and soot passed his lips, gagging for a full moment before he realized that breath was needless.

 

Something was wrong. Sorely, unnaturally wrong.

 

Sighting a small, unassuming puddle of water did Ravus scramble towards it and stare at what reflected back, almost overcome with shock.

 

Staring back at him was a hollowed left socket where his mutated eye had been, skin beneath rotted away and revealing the upper and lower rows of molars, his complexion was utterly papery and a ghostly white, but tough as tarp stretched over canvas and starched. Ravus’ hair was a shock of luminous white, more than it’d been alive. Though his uniform had remained intact, it was irreparably dull with age and grave soil, torn where the stab wound had been inflicted. Otherwise, he was stiff with preservatives, throat dry and thankful he didn’t need to breathe.

 

Suddenly, the hurt that had come in the last moments of his life welled fresh and searing, Ravus gasping as he clutched his chest and choked out a sob. There was no way of shedding tears, they all dried, fumbling for his sword as he cried out in mournful rage and began hacking away at the barren saplings spanning around the glen he’d awoken in, blind and cutting as they toppled and he stabbed into trunks and toppling trees with preternatural, inhuman ease.

 

“CURSE HIM! CURSE THEM ALL!” he roared wrathfully, tearing through the forest and snarling as he split trees and undergrowth, but he balked at the forest’s edge when he suddenly stumbled into a populous thoroughfare and stopped short.

 

Undead in various stages of rot, some completely skeletal, stared at him and he suddenly became self-aware and embarrassed at what a madman he must’ve appeared to them. Lowering his brandished sword and sheathing it, face stinging with his shame, he recomposed himself and tucked some errant hair behind an ear. Though the hurt lingered nebulously, he schooled his features gravely. Likely appearing more mournful than he was aware of.

 

Their frozen caricature suddenly resumed and they returned to their business as if it’d never been interrupted at all, save for the several who lingered.

 

“Lord Ravus, is that you?”

 

Ravus straightened hopefully at the voice, searching those who’d remained behind. “Maria?” The woman in question was there, skin blued but appearing almost perfectly intact—unlike him, he grudgingly noticed. “What is this place? Why are you here?”

 

She held her hands up in a placating manner, understanding. “Come to the tavern, Lord Ravus. It’s cold tonight and I imagine you’d rather warm up, hm?” Ravus furrowed his brows, but had to admit he felt the chill now. It was bitter, and stabbing. He supposed a lack of blood circulation would be responsible for that.

 

She led him across the town plaza where a proud statue general sat astride a sculpted horse, glancing at the sky, brooding clouds hanging slow and heavy over the horizon. It suddenly became raucous when he stepped inside, the undead from before engaged in the wild throes of a party.

 

“Drink, sir?” a headless waiter proferred, Ravus staring at the column of their neck offensively and nodding unconsciously. Taking the drink, he wondered: could the dead even drink? Shrugging, he downed a draft from the pint, head swimming and pleased to discover that, yes, they could. It was a pint of beer. Normally he’d shun the brew, but the circumstances seemed mitigating.

 

Ravus followed Maria, height and shade making him stand out perturbingly from the others. She took him to a corner of the bar counter that was unoccupied, perching on the seat and allowing himself to slouch for once in his life. The buzz certainly attributed for the lack of decorum, but with how it washed down the acrid taste of soot and dust, he continued to nurse the beer thirstily.

 

Maria poised to seat herself, looking smaller than ever as she perched on the stool like a withered crow on a telephone wire. Letting her shawl slip off, she only ordered a water, nothing more. “This is the Land of the Dead, Lord Ravus. This where the dead go after death. In most cases, it would seem,” she began, taking tentative sips of her water. She glanced at him, Ravus’ raised brow urging her to continue. “The past two years...they’ve been difficult, my lord. After His Majesty interceded in saving your soul from limbo, the Lord of the Skies saw it as a transgression and took something dear to him in retribution. Our realm has fallen on hard times, I’m afraid.”

 

“Oh, Maria, dear, is that you? I almost didn’t see you!” a shrill, disembodied voice called that caused Ravus to glance sidelong, bemused, mid-sip of his beer. From the ceiling, a personable black widow made her descent and white brows rose at her personified features. Lucky thing he was well on his way to becoming drunk. “Who might you be?” she said towards Ravus, Maria answering for him.

 

“Miss Widow,” she smiled tensely, “let’s sup for tea another time. I’m afraid...now simply isn’t the time. This is—him.”

 

Black Widow caught herself, gasping into one of her appendages. “I see. So terribly sorry for interrupting, dear,” the arachnid apologized before making her silky ascent again.

 

“Talking spiders. Is there anything else I’ll need to desensitize myself to?” Ravus scoffed in disbelief after he lowered his pint, surprised to find it almost empty. Grunting, he slid it out for a refill. And why not? Anything to numb the piles of nuisances he was finding, alongside the grief from an unjust death. The skeletal bartender refilled it, Ravus drinking down a generous mouthful before sighing.

 

Maria seemed to suddenly become gloomy, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. “Lord Ravus, you’re seeking answers, aren’t you? I’m afraid I do not know as much as I wish, but—perhaps you can speak with the Reaper King. His Majesty was the one who saw that you’d make it here intact.”

 

Ravus gulped down another mouthful of the beer, raking his fingers through his hair. “An enchanting idea, were I to know who this _esteemed_ king is,” he groused icily, mind fogged and irritated. He was still surprised none had dribbled from the gap in his left cheek. “More so, why my miserable wretch of a soul was worthy of ‘saving.’”

 

Maria shifted uncomfortably in her seat, lowering her glass and placing a hand on Ravus’ forearm, a disarmingly familiar motion that saw Ravus soften. She’d been like a grandmother to himself and Lunafreya, after all. He couldn’t help but lower his barbs around her. “Maria, what happened to you?” he asked softly of her, a rare look of concern crossing his features genuinely.

 

Maria seemed to crumple in on herself, small shoulders shaking as she choked back a sob and covered her eyes with her hands, hiccuping some. “When I heard news of your—fate, my lord, I… It was too much. My heart, I felt it breaking, inside me— Astrals, why must it have been you?” Maria wailed quietly into her hand, unable to truly cry as the undead while Ravus felt himself freeze at the revelation.

 

Words froze on his tongue, paltry consolations as he could only move from his perch and inexorably take the grieving governess into his arms, heart constricting in his chest. “Maria… I am sorry. To have caused you so much strife,” Ravus murmured numbly, feeling his throat dry and misery sober him.

 

When he felt the woman gently push him away with trembling hands, likely thinking it selfish of her, she slipped him a watery smile. “Do not apologize to me, Lord Ravus. You’re here. We can be something like a family again, and perhaps we might make something of this new life.”

 

Ravus sat back upon his bar stool, unable to finish the rest of the half-empty pint. Though the festivities raged on, he was indifferent to it. He grew quiet, the lull from the spirits still causing his mind to swirl erratically. Small wonder he rarely had drunk much before. “This reaper king. Might there be any way of being granted an audience with him?”

 

“Oh, pick me! Pick me!”

 

Ravus started when he heard an unfamiliar voice within his skull, rearing back with his hand hovering over his cutlass.

 

Maria chuckled amicably, Ravus realizing she was staring directly at the empty eye socket. “My, Maggot. That’s no way to introduce yourself.”

 

Glaring at the empty socket, Ravus dug his fingers into the empty recess and extracted a dangling maggot, again with strangely human features like the she-spider from before. Dropping him callously to the bar counter, Ravus loomed imperiously over him. “Speak, worm. Lest I be tempted to pulverize you for invading my skull,” he grit with bared teeth, Maggot slithering over to Maria.

 

“Sheesh, tough crowd. Was he always this grumpy?” Maggot whispered to Maria, using his tail like a hand to secret such a remark. This only earned him another glare. “You remind me of someone I used to know. Same kinda fate, too. But she turned out alright. Guess not everyone gets gentle after going through a tough time.”

 

“Yes, because being murdered by the man I was to be betrothed to was merely a ‘ _tough time_ ’,” Ravus seethed sarcastically, Maggot inching back in fear. The derelict pint was beginning to look attractive again.

 

“You’ll have to see Elder Gutknecht for that. He’s overseer of the Underworld, see, and nobody sees the King without his okay,” Maggot piped up, resuming the topic from before.

 

Ravus cast the maggot a withering stare, though sat back, resigned. “I wish to see him immediately. Without delay,” Ravus snapped at Maggot, Maria smiling fondly at the man so like her grandson despite his persnickety demeanor. With so much still unanswered, it seemed as though this was the only way in which he’d receive the clarity he sought.

 

Finding Elder Gutknecht was not nearly a difficult task as thought, Ravus requesting that he do so alone. He’d stood before emperors and kings, whole swaths of politicians. Whoever this sole man was couldn’t possibly be more intimidating than them. Entering was a simple affair, the domain unguarded. A foolish notion, but within the vaulted library where the elder resided, he stopped questioning this land’s mad logic.

 

Gutknecht leafed obliviously through his dense tome, not seeming to hear Ravus enter. Walking to where he stood in the center before the raised podium, starkly blanched against the darkened setting more than ever before, he cleared his throat. “Elder Gutknecht, I wish to request an audience with the king,” he spoke clearly, frankly, as a man of his former office should despite the inebriation still muddying his mind.

 

The elder undead huffed as he breathed in laboriously, despite no need to, adjusting his bifocals to lean in closer. “Eh? Might you tell me why you wish to see the king, dear boy?” he rasped almost inaudibly, Ravus almost concerned those thread-thick bones might snap by the next breeze.

 

Ravus sighed internally, salvaging through his mind for reasons. Trying to keep them roped together. “I was informed he personally...found my soul. I simply wish to learn the circumstances behind this, and nothing less.”

 

“Ah, so you must be the one causing quite the stir. You see, in many a circumstance, His Majesty would be too busy to easily seek an audience. However...” Gutknecht wearily lifted himself from his seat, bones creaking as he descended the stair. “You seem to be an exception. Your death caused quite a stir up above, and continues to do so. His Majesty still deals with the ramifications, even now.”

 

“Then you understand my plight. If anything, _I_ should be the one who is expected.” The brittle-boned undead nodded blearily, as if he hadn’t really heard the Tenebraen.

 

Fishing through a disarray of books, Gutknecht produced what appeared to be a small scroll, glancing about warily as if they were being watched. “Guard this jealously. When you are prepared to visit him, open the scroll and merely read the last line of what’s written. Then, you shall find yourself within his palace.”

 

Ravus took the scroll, squinting at the worn parchment cinched by a dusty blue ribbon as if it were the oddest thing he’d ever seen. “So easily?” he said finally, the decorum wearing away. He watched as Gutknecht ascended the stair again to his podium, heaving himself to lean against it raggedly. Nothing was so easy.

 

Adjusting his bifocals on a nonexistent nose, the elder began scrawling absently on blank paper. “Perhaps—if you wish for there to be a challenge, hike somewhere obscure. Open it then. Whichever you prefer.” Ravus smirked at the old man’s bluntness, finding it more respectable than the doltish nonsense that seemed to infect these lands. Astrals forbid he ever succumb to their madness.

 

_The sun left us behind that day._

 

For some reason, the words caused a pang in his chest he hadn’t expected. There was something familiar about it, and damnably so. But before he could dwell as to why, a violet miasma spilled and consumed him in a vale of fog, he squinting through it until a cold sweep of wind banished the plumes away. If he still breathed Ravus imagined he would cough, but instead he stared.

 

Before him did tiered dual stairs converge at a stone-carved, empty throne dominated by skeletal angels petrified mid-flight. They seemed to leap from the stony relief into stain-glass windows, marble floors so glassy in their sheen Ravus almost felt ashamed for his dilapidated state despite trepidation knotting in his breast. Torches flickered wide swaths of amber that flooded feet before them, providing some warmth to the otherwise vaulted tomb.

 

What truly jolted him was the figure that came from behind, Ravus wondering if he could pale further if it were possible.

 

It was Noctis who walked with all regality into the throne room, dressed in a black super-tunic with long sleeves and trousers, as well the boots he remembered when he died. Though, his face—still attractive—appeared stern and belonged to an unyielding, powerful man. The air past him was still warm, still present with a pulse that drove his instincts into yearning for a life he was cruelly bereft of. As if that first night with the traitor had just occurred, feeling places he thought dead stirring.

 

Unless it was the liquor’s fault.

 

When Noctis gazed upon him, it felt though he’d been pierced by arrows. It wasn’t the warmth he was accustomed to from their past, but a hollow want to embrace the other twitched inside of him, though his own body craved the heat of something living, of someone dear to him even if that might not be reciprocated.

 

“Noct— Your Majesty,” Ravus corrected himself, bowing crisply from the waist despite how harrowed this all felt. His mind was still fogged, fighting away inappropriate dalliances when none were to exist beyond conception here. But for how long would that remain?

 

That’s when he saw the sternness on Noctis’ visage seem to falter, something more sympathetic blooming. Grief, if he could name it. “Of all the people I’d think to see here, you weren’t among them,” Noctis said lowly, sounding low like a sussurus. It was too late for that. But Ravus’ heart stirred still, seeming to gravitate towards him.

 

“It’s been years since then. Since you died.”

 

Ravus’ lips pursed, nodding, brows furrowing as he felt the growing urge to look away in shame of himself. “Might I ask what happened, Noctis? Why is it I am hearing of you at war with the Draconian?”

 

“Not war,” Noctis interrupted first, shaking his head. It seemed difficult to speak of. “When I saved your soul from oblivion, where it was destined, I broke ancient laws. In retribution, the Lord of the Skies took the soul of my father in exchange. And we suffered for it.”

 

This sobered Ravus from nearing the king any closer. King. It struck such a strange chord for him, that the closest he’d ever had to a friend was this. “...My soul is not worth so much. I— My condolences for your loss.” The undead began to turn away, suddenly feeling very foolish. Noctis’ father, gone; and for what? Suddenly, the old hurts seemed so insignificant.

 

“I wasn’t thinking.” Noctis’ voice suddenly broke the silence, Ravus taking pause and craning to hear with a slowly disbelieving expression. “After I reaped your soul, hearing what would happen to it—I couldn’t allow it. So I seized it back, and let it go. ...I didn’t think it’d find its way here.”

 

Ravus bowed his head, lips pursing. He took small strides as he came before Noctis, unfurling his fist just slightly to caress along Noctis’ cheek, relishing in the warmth that had long been stolen from him. When Noctis didn’t shy away from him, Ravus’ touch lingered at the junction of his neck and shoulder, taking another step in and lowering his forehead until it touched Noctis’ receptive brow. They stood quietly like this for a long moment, Ravus losing himself in the scent of the king that was like in those dreams they’d shared together.

 

“Must we allow a bygone mistake drive such distance between us?” the former commander murmured earnestly, longingly, thumb rubbing small circles while their breaths practically coalesced together.

 

Ravus loomed closer, barely centimeters from his lips, theirs brushing together as they spoke and the closure was agonizing. “You love Ardyn,” Noctis suddenly spoke, hands on Ravus’ chest as he just barely motioned to push him away.

 

“How can I?” the taller demanded softly of him, Ravus taking one of those hands and holding it to the wound, his hand layered over Noctis’, the canvas jacket still torn where he’d been stabbed. Noctis didn’t recoil in horror, but his face fell, eyes sinking shut.

 

“I have to save my father, Ravus. I’m sorry.” With that, Noctis suddenly moved away, leaving Ravus bereft with only the memory of Noctis’ warm hands touching him and greedily committing it to memory.

 

Ravus’ sole good eye fell shut, bowing his head.

 

“I understand, Your Majesty.”


	5. Silence's Way

Warning(s): T, none

* * *

 

In a timeless place, there was little guilt in wasting it. If this would even count as squandering. No living flowers grew here, as he was coming to discover. Only dried husks like the pressed flowers his mother had taught him to make flourished here. Dead, but preserved of their color like the vibrancy had died and was waiting for death to take it. Like how death never rotted dead faces immediately. It took weeks, years—until they became unrecognizable bone to be stacked in catacombs beneath the earth.

 

But, in the place he’d awoken, Ravus fleshed something real from this ordeal. Flowers, leaves, stone carved with his claws; it was enough to scribe Sylva’s name in the stone. White-etched and deep enough that it wouldn’t erode with the next rain. He remembered when he’d been able to see her grave after that first real promotion after being a private. A grand statue of an angel in flight, like a messenger of eld, platformed by tiers in a monument that shadowed over all who viewed it. White as the driven snow.

 

But, completely soulless. It wasn’t his or Luna’s. There was nothing but cold and artifice from that abomination.

 

He felt sixteen again. Nothing to his name, with no power under his heel to command. Just the tattered remnant of a life once lived, of pride and hollowed things that clung to his ribs and tried beating in this undead body again.

 

Ravus shouldn’t feel. His heart shouldn’t clench, and the burning in his throat should’ve quelled on his death bed. But as he sat on muddy turf, squelching and leaking wet through the grooves of his greaves while a misty drizzle hailed from the heavens. It always seemed so gloomy here. Like all hallows eve.

 

Why did his heart burn with warmth? Why did a painful heat build in the corners of his eyes? Rain accumulated in silver tresses and dripped in open hands, but he did not feel it. A sky gray as his name mourned with him, but he did not chill from its grieving. He only heard its patter off the leather of his canvas jacket, seep chilled through the cracks.

 

Maybe he could be warm. If he only just kept his eyes closed and thought of Noctis’ warmth, hands twitching from the recollection. Wanting to embrace him tighter than anything and bury his nose in hair that smelt of warm cinders and spent ashes. To hug his sister, his mother; embrace them all and never let go. Yearning for what was lost and could never be regained.

 

He never raised his head when he felt the air emptied, rain pattering distantly above his head and a presence take place at his side. “We’re not supposed to feel this. We’re not supposed to _feel_ ,” Ravus whispered hoarsely as his throat closed. It hurt to speak. Like swallowing needles down a throat that only caught and choked on them.

 

“We’re undead, not unfeeling, Lord Ravus.” Maria. Always patient, always kind. A grandmother when theirs had perished long ago.

 

“Why does it hurt? Why does it feel as though my heart is being clenched by fists and thorns?” Ravus uttered in a torrid whisper, feeling the old woman thread her hand soothingly through his hair. Like a mother would their child after the trauma of a thunderstorm.

 

“Love does such things to us. It is not something we can help,” Maria consoled, even if her voice was becoming drowned by an onrushing rain harder than before.

 

Ravus felt his lips part to say something, but the words died on his tongue. A painful realization. He thought of the mercurial dreamy warmth Ardyn had delivered him to. A disconnected dream when Noctis had accused him. So gentle, but it still dug its barbs into his heart. He recalled that hazy night when he’d imagined Noctis so lewdly for the first time, but in his years of martial training, he knew: it had existed long before. Only, it had never taken such carnal shape so shamelessly.

 

Sitting on his knees to begin with, a painful jab of longing punctured through his bitterly cold defenses. Erected from years of numbing himself to the loneliness, the pain. “Are you suggesting that I am in love with Noctis?” he said aloud, forcing himself to say what he’d denied for years. Her touches only softened, and immediately he felt his sorrow harden for lashing out against her.

 

“Are you, my lord?” she queried softly, nonplussed, but not cruelly pressing for an answer.

 

Ravus said nothing as he rose from his place, water rushing from him when he was almost still enough for moss and lichen to grow, towering above Maria and regaining his pride in the straightening of his spine. Though, that statuesque he’d employed for so many years bowed beneath the weight of reality, the man’s lips thinning before he bit the lower. His good eye closed, shutting the world away.

 

“I wish I wasn’t.”

 

* * *

 

The Ball and Socket Pub—as he’d learned was the name of the tavern—soon was establishing itself as the grape vine within the Land of the Undead, as Ravus understood. Not every night was a wild party; simply those on the weekends. When he’d come, it had felt like empty frivolity. But, these people had been dead far longer than he. After experiencing warmth, longing, and love as an undead, he begun to understand why ghosts only truly manifested when people were around. Why they made the air cold, why they reached for human warmth and touch. Why these people threw empty festivities to compensate for it.

 

A graven sense of purpose gathered when he explained why he needed the denizens, why they would listen to him speak. If love was such a grand motivator, then his past life as High Commander wasn’t entirely to waste.

 

“Do you truly wish for your country to be laid under siege by a being who could truly care less for your welfare?” Ravus declared upon the bar counter, a strange podium for him to be astride. “He took the soul of your king’s father. Would you truly be so complacent as to allow it?” It was foolishly desperate, the things men in love did. Moved by errant and illogical passions. That he would admit it felt like weakness.

 

Yet, what else was he to do in this un-life? Living, he had Luna and his country to protect. Here, with no access to either, he only had Noctis’ cause to make his own. Without purpose, he would waste into nothingness and the idea of that proved more debilitating than death itself had ever been.

 

“Well, hang on a minute, man! His majesty even approve of all this, or are ya just pulling our legs?” A muffled ring of laughter sounded at Bonejangles’ jocular remark, Ravus narrowing his eyes dangerously.

 

Dismounting the bar counter with two commanding, resonant footfalls did he clamor to the floor with purposeful loudness. Broad shoulders squared, he loomed over the skeleton and fixed him with a deathly glare. “You can barely fathom the power of the Draconian. Do you mean to tell me that you would rather see your fellow undead perish without a care?” Ravus demanded firmly, the easy-speaking undead leaning back and shifting his eyes away nervously.

 

Bonejangles wheeled back comically, the crowd clearing to allow the entertainer space. “You’re new, an’ all. Why care so much?”

 

Dammit. Insipid dolts! Though… No, there was a point there. Even if he knew the reason. Through the walls of rationale and martial conduct, he allowed himself to slip through. “Your king gave years of life to...befriend me. After a travesty so small compared to himself. And risked himself after. Suffice to say, I owe him a debt one life cannot hope to pay.” Though a few of them murmured, they didn’t press for more. Perhaps he could appreciate these simpletons for that, at least.

 

“Don’t suppose you’ve got a plan for meetin’ this bloke and _whackin’_ ‘is head in?” Mrs. Plum piped up, slapping a roller on her open palm like a gangster threatening violence.

 

Ravus’ brows furrowed. “No—” his voice flattened in incredulous disgust. “Why on earth— Gods cannot be defeated by such...prosaic means.”

 

“Maybe if we got a really big roller, yeah?” The Tenebraen cursed when he heard the voice from inside his skull— _again_ —and clapped his palm against his temple to rattle the damn insect, earning a disgruntled sound.

 

“ **Out**.” Maggot slithered from his ear, Ravus flicking him away for Bonejangles to catch in bewilderment. “Damn insect, cease making my head your personal domain!” he snapped indignantly, huffing before seeing Black Widow descend on her silky thread to pluck Maggot into her embrace.

 

Raking falling strands from his face, Ravus clarified, “No, we must appeal to the Draconian. My sister is the Oracle. Only she knows these things better than I, yet I can ascertain we need only appeal and summon the god himself.”

 

The crowd grew quiet. “The hell do you intend on gettin’ up there?” Mrs. Plum demanded shortly, wide mouth pulled into a taut line.

 

Ravus’ jaw set in a hard line, chuffing. Astrals, wasn’t it supposed to be simple? “Ghosts manage it. Isn’t it supposed to be so simple?”

 

“Nah, we’re undead, man. That’s Elder Gutknecht’s turf, man. Ain’t none of us can just go around hauntin’ all willy nilly,” Bonejangles elaborated, wriggling his fingers as if expounding on such a concept. “One you’re down here, it’s either through the boss man or the elder that you can go all topside.”

 

Of course it wouldn’t be simple. Perhaps he should’ve anticipated as much. No, after all of this, perhaps fate had been lenient with him. Easier than it could’ve otherwise been. Feeling as though his proposition had cut short, something else welled within him. Something that reminded so easily of his earlier passion. “...Will you still be loyal to your king? Will you fight if he demands it and defend your homeland?”

 

At first, they sounded uncertain, but his conviction seemed to inspire them, their resolution growing in volume. Soon, Bonejangles had launched himself at the piano and flipped away the cover, introducing a jouncy tune that mirrored their cheers. It became a chorus and the entire band flew to their places on stage, something or other about headless dragons being the subject of their song.

 

There were worse ways of rallying an army, he supposed.

 

Excusing themselves from their lively, headache-inducing throes did Ravus slip away from the noise and into the empty streets, the entirety of the town seeming to have crammed itself within the pub. By the skeletal generalissimo and his equally skeletal steed, the bone-white man heaved himself on a bench and sagged upon it, spreading his legs sloppily and typically unlike himself. As if anyone was around to judge.

 

“You really intend to go up there and bring the fight to them?” Ravus started from his splay, sitting upright on the bench. Looking around, he saw a garishly clad, sword-impaled skeleton of diminutive stature comically toddle towards him. General Bonesapart, if Ravus remembered correctly. He’d been too drunk when he’d come to recall everyone’s names properly. …Gods, how he was loathe to remember as much. Never would he allow such misconduct to weather his character again.

 

Clearing his throat, he didn’t know if a general in this place of all places was a mockery or a boon. “If they would be willing to fight, yes,” Ravus answered in a measured tone, schooling his features neutrally.

 

If he could smile, he imagined the general would. “You know, haven’t had somethin’ this excitin’ in the longest of times,” the petite one said as he plopped next to Ravus, looking for all the world like a toddler. Were times not to grim, he might chuckle at his own observation. —Though, another general came to mind. Perhaps they were long lost relatives or some such. “Wars? Been too long.”

 

Folding his arms, Ravus gazed blankly into the empty thoroughfare, the jiving pub throbbing with music. “This isn’t child’s play,” Ravus snorted dourly. “If you intend upon tomfoolery, you ought reconsider.”

 

Before General Bonesapart could so much as unhinge his jaw did the sky shake and shudder, Ravus shooting from his seat and hand hovering over the hilt of his sword. The poise soon dissolved into awe as the clouds broke and a mighty stroke of wind buffeted the, nearly blowing the general away. Ravus covered his face partially with his sleeve, seeing the clouds churn and roil together while a mighty ray of sunlight split through.

 

Roaring could be heard that trembled the air atmospherically, the mighty buffet of wings beating the air audible even from afar. No—he knew this! It… _How?!_ Ravus had no time to answer his own question as Bahamut swooped past them in a powerful gale, nearly uprooting Ravus from his stance on the brick-lain streets. Swords could be seen manifesting against the stark black of the sky, and one could’ve anticipated the devastation to come.

 

Those swords spanned and rung in their wide swath, in haunting syncopation that glowed in defiance of the night and Ravus barely reacted in time with their assault. They soared towards them, Ravus shouting something incoherent before dragging Bonesapart to the earth and ducking beneath the statue that was made short work of. Ravus hissed when rubble fell upon them, but it wasn’t enough to scar. A cacophonous implosion resounded when those blades impaled and clove through the Bone and Socket Pub, smoke and flames caressing the sky before those luminous blades removed themselves, taking rubble and debris to collapse in the wake of their assault with them. Ravus peered to see in horror as the Draconian’s blades arced easily into the sky, terrified screams heard within.

 

Rushing from the lee of the statue, Ravus brandished his sword angrily at the reptilian god. “Coward! That you would sunder the innocent, I see naught but a god of cowardice and low cunning!” he roared, uncaring of the consequences by this point.

 

Seeming to have heard him. Halfway did Bahamut pause mid-flight, suspended on the air as his wings snapped open to leisurely hover, that short work not having winded the god. Nothing was said more in acknowledgment before Bahamut returned through the rift he’d came through, the portal sealing with a puff of smoke as those disturbed skies became their unperturbed gloom once more.

 

Gingerly did Ravus collect himself, staring blankly at the ruination of the pub and feeling a guilt weigh his chest. He was the one who had attempted rallying them without the king even formally declaring war. He had endangered the lives of innocents, unintentionally or no. Smoke plumed into the sky and meager flames licked the air, hissing as rain seemed to fall a minute too late. People gradually filed from its remains, several still stuck, he was sure.

 

“Does this call off the war, then?” General Bonesapart inquired meekly after collecting himself from the assault, glancing at Ravus before quailing his gaze in fear of retaliation.

 

Ravus said nothing, gritting his teeth and balling his hands into fists.

 

No, he knew what he had to do. And he would do it _alone_.


End file.
